


It's a Cold and It's a Broken Hallelujah

by Wiz_is_bored



Category: Hatchetfield Universe - Team StarKid, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Angst, Choking, Gen, Infected Paul Matthews, Murder, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:48:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24433084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wiz_is_bored/pseuds/Wiz_is_bored
Summary: The immediate aftermath to TGWDLM.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	It's a Cold and It's a Broken Hallelujah

She expects them all to close in on her once again, to rip her apart. She expects it to be bloody. Messy. Gruesome. Flashes of memory streak past her mind’s eye, images of blue guts and too much blood. She tries to curl herself up on the floor where they threw her, resolving that she’ll try to hold them off for as long as humanly possible. She knows it won’t help, that even if she somehow manages to protect her stomach there’ll be a thousand other ways for her to die, but she refuses to just give up and let it happen. If those bastards want to make her part of their shitty musical, then she’s going to make it difficult. Or at least inconvenient.

The hive is not inconvenienced in the slightest. Eerily silent now, they easily pry their prey’s limbs away from its body, unmoved by its screams. _This is it,_ she thinks, _oh God, it’s going to hurt, isn’t it?_ She tries, and fails, to mentally prepare herself for the feeling of hands ripping through her.

But no such feeling ever comes. The hands just hold her down. And then there’s a hand on her shoulder. His hand. There’s no time to register the new flood of emotion before his face is an inch from hers. Far too close, but a few minutes ago, before the first note, it wouldn’t have been close enough. Strange how that is. His face is twisted into a grin. It’s far too wide.

Words failing her, she freezes up. Breaths come quick and shallow. He just keeps grinning as he slowly moves one leg over her, straddling her hips. Her body seems to remember how to move then - she tries to squirm out from under him but he holds her in place easily. The chorus begins to recede, backing out of the room, leaving the two of them alone. Attempts at punches do nothing. His grin doesn't falter.  
"Get off me!" she finally manages to scream, almost surprised she's not too hysterical for words, "get off me, you musical bastard!"  
He sits up, letting go of her shoulders, but she’s no less trapped. A hand gently tracing her jaw is quickly slapped away.  
"Don't fuck with me," she tries to snarl. It comes out more like a whimper. "At least- at least let me die with _some_ dignity."  
The man above her chuckles. "Nobody dies with _dignity,_ Emma. There's no honour in the thing, however you dress it up."  
"Don't fuck with me," she repeats.  
A hand again, resting on her cheek, deceptively gentle. It can't be pried off, though she tries.  
"Am I not allowed to comfort you?"  
"No. And I don't know what the fuck your definition of comfort is, because this isn't mine."

For a few moments there's no reply. He just watches her struggle, still trying to pull his hand off her, still trying to squirm her way out from under him.  
“You can stop fighting now, Em.”  
“Like hell I can.”  
Cocking his head to the side, he lightly strokes her cheek with his thumb. “You’re small and weak,” he states in a sing-song voice, “and you’ve already lost.”  
“I-”  
“You can rest now. I’ll put you to sleep, and when you wake up it’ll all be okay.”  
The woman pounds her fist against his leg, her panic rising. She’s not stupid, she knows what ‘put you to sleep’ means. She’s not a fucking dog, she’s not going to let him put her down because he’s deemed her life not worth living.

“Shh,” he whispers, “shh, it’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay. Okay?”  
“Stop,” she demands between shaky breaths, “stop dragging it out.”  
Wiping the tears from her face, he continues to shush her. She doesn't know when she started crying. Staring into those cold, too-blue eyes she has to wonder if these are genuine attempts at comfort or just the musical freak playing with its food. Is anything left of the man she once trusted?  
“Paul?” she asks tentatively, “Paul, I…” She sobs. She doesn’t want to, but she’s far past being together enough to hold it in. “Paul, I don’t want to die.”  
He shakes his head. “You just don’t know what you’re missing.”  
“I think I fucking do! I don’t want to be a musical zombie, thanks!”  
“It’s a higher plane of existence, Emma.”  
“It’s worse than that production of Godspell!”  
“I can show you.”  
“Please don’t.”

But there’s no stopping him now.  
_“Before I had no ambition,”_ he starts his song up again, but it’s different now. Slower, more gentle.  
“Paul, stop,” she cries.  
_“But now my life is a song.”_  
She covers her ears with her hands, but he pulls them off easily, holding them.  
_“Don’t you want to see me happy?”_  
“Not again!”  
_“Is that so tragically wrong?”_  
“Not this fucking song again!”  
He cocks his head to the side again. “You think it’s too early for a reprise?”  
She draws in a breath to speak, but all that comes out is a sob.

She’s split between her resolution to hold off her death for as long as possible and the desperate desire for this to just be over. There’s no preventing the inevitable, just prolonging it. All she can do is stare up at that unyielding grin.  
“P-Paul?” she asks again. “How… How are you going to do it? Do I… do I want to know?”  
“So eager?”  
“No, I-”  
“It’s understandable. You’ve been through a lot, Em, you deserve a rest.”  
"I don't _want_ to die," she reiterates, "I just… Oh, God, I don't want to die." There was meant to be some other point there, something else she was going to say, but she can’t move past that thought. “I don’t want to die!”

The man watches her sob, letting go of her hands to let her rub at her eyes.  
“How about a different song, Em?”  
“No… no more songs...”  
“But you’re having trouble sleeping, you’re too worked up. A lullaby will help, won’t it?”  
“No!”

The man gently strokes his prey’s hair, ignoring the continued protests.  
_"I heard there was a secret chord,"_ he sings softly, _"that David played, and it pleased the Lord."_  
He pushes her hands out of the way to wipe away the tears welling in her eyes again. The song itself scares her, and she's not sure why. Something about its familiarity, intended to be comforting, is horrifying.  
_“But you don’t really care for music, do you?”_  
His expression falters then, his grin beginning to look more like a snarl. For the first time, she notices the blue stains on his teeth.  
“Paul,” she whimpers, “Paul _please-”_  
_“It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth,”_  
The hand moves down her face, lightly brushing across her cheek.  
_“The minor fall, the major lift,”_  
She grabs a hold of his wrist, straining to push him away with no success. “Oh, shit,” she says to herself, not knowing _how_ he’s going to off her but knowing he’s going to do it soon, past the point of being able to come up with anything more complex to say. “Fuck, shit-”  
_“The baffled king composing hallelujah.”_  
The noise is cut off when the man clamps his hand over her mouth. She attempts to pry his fingers off her face or shake him off, knowing it’s pointless, painfully aware of the fact that a string of swears will probably be her last words. She supposes that fits.

_“Hallelujah,”_  
He strokes her hair gently as she squirms.  
_“Hallelujah.”_  
She tries the childish trick of licking his hand, to no avail.  
_“Hallelujah,”_  
The other hand begins to move. The trapped woman claws at his arm, desperate. A jolt of fear sparks through her body as an idea of what he may be planning enters her mind.  
_“Hallelu… u… ujah.”_

He suddenly pinches her nose. Hard. She scrabbles to pry his hands off her face, eyes wide. Her idea was correct. _Oh God, he is going to suffocate me._  
_“Your faith was strong but you needed proof, you saw her bathing on the roof.”_  
She desperately tries to exhale. A small amount of air is able to escape around the hand over her mouth, but it's nowhere near enough. She's not _breathing._  
_“Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you.”_  
She slams the heel of her hand into his arm repeatedly, trying to dislodge the hand holding her nose. His tight grip is painful on top of the pressure in her chest. But he’s holding her like she’s his salvation, as if it’s _his_ life hanging in the balance.  
_“She tied you to a kitchen chair,  
She broke your throne, she cut your hair,”_  
The pressure is building faster than she can exhale around his hand. She still tries, though. Even if it’s pointless.  
_“And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah.”_  
His arms appear immovable. She punches and slaps at whatever part of him she can reach, flailing her legs uselessly. It’s hopeless, but she refuses to be killed by a game of fucking ‘got your nose’. 

_“Hallelujah,”_  
Time to attempt to inhale. She’s never felt the effort of breathing so clearly before, her rips straining to expand.  
_“Hallelujah.”_  
Her struggle doesn’t go unnoticed.  
_“Hallelujah,”_  
He leans forward, leaning more of his weight on his hands, tightening the seal.  
_“Hallelu… u… ujah.”_

The continued attempt to drag in breath is near impossible. She still tries.  
_“Maybe I’ve been here before, I’ve seen this room, I’ve walked this floor.  
I used to live alone before I knew you.”_  
Her fist pounds against the floor. She knows that it’ll do nothing to release the crushing feeling in her chest and head, but she can’t lie still and bear it. It _hurts._  
_“I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch,  
But love is not a victory march.”_  
Blinking hard, she tries to clear the spots from her vision. They persevere. _That’s not a good sign,_ she notes.  
_“It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.”_  
Through the haze she can still see his face, his grin. The flash of malice she noticed earlier is gone. He’s just... smiling. It looks almost genuine, like he really is just singing her to sleep. 

_“Hallelujah,  
Hallelujah.”_  
Does he really think this is working? That this is a comfort to her?  
_“Hallelujah,  
Hallelu… u… ujah.”_

The haze is fading now. She desperately hangs on to the image of his eyes, the blue standing out in her failing vision. Even if the shine of them terrifies her it’s better than seeing nothing.  
_“There was a time when you let me know what’s real and going on below.  
But now you never show that to me, do you?”_  
Her weak struggling is like moving through water. It feels like her ribcage is about to burst open. The woman’s hands move back to his, but she can’t do anything more than sluggishly grasp at them.  
_“Remember when I moved in you?  
And the Holy dove was moving too?  
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah?”_  
She can’t breathe. She’s losing the energy to try. 

_“Hallelujah,  
Hallelujah.”_  
She can feel herself fading. She keeps fighting to stay awake, but… why? She has to wonder why she’s trying to prolong her life when it’s practically over already.  
_“Hallelujah,  
Hallelu… u… ujah.”_

She can’t breathe, and she’s stopped trying. As her vision continues to worsen she clings to what she can still hear. Maybe it _could_ be a comfort, if she lets it be.  
_“Maybe there’s a God above, but all I ever learned from love  
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you.”_  
In her oxygen-deprived state it’s easy to forget the implications. It’s just Paul, the guy she met at work. Just a normal guy singing a song. That’s what she lets herself believe.  
_“And it’s not a cry that you hear at night,  
It’s not somebody who’s seen the light,  
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.”_  
Her eyes slide closed, letting it lul her to sleep. 

_“Hallelujah,  
Hallelujah.”_  
He watches the woman fall limp, her hands sliding off his.  
_“Hallelujah,  
Hallelu… u…”_  
For a brief moment her eyes flutter open, only catching a vague image of his face before they close again.  
_“Hallelujah,  
Hallelujah.”_  
_The guy sings well,_ she notes absent-mindedly as her consciousness slips away.  
_“Hallelujah,  
Hallelu… u… ujah.”_

The woman below him has lost consciousness but the man knows her heart is still trying. Sensitive to rhythm as he is, he can feel that it’s already off beat. With the patience of a dead man, he waits for it to give up. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the Paul chat on Tumblr for giving me the confidence to post this, and to my friend I bounce ideas off of!


End file.
